Starrbooty Review

Back on Saturday July 14 me and my friend Mike went to see the new RuPaul sex comedy-cum-blaxploitation takeoff Starrbooty at the Prince Music Theater as part of the most recent Philly Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and the place was packed. If you had checked out last week's Friday Video, RuPaul herself as well as some other members of the cast and crew were there to introduce it personally and to hold a quesion and answer session afterwords.

As for the film itself, it was quite enjoyable with some really out-there moments. It definitely was a take-off of the 70's sexploitation (a la Russ Meyer) and blaxploitation (Pam Grier) flicks. In the film RuPaul is Starrbooty, a supermodel turned international superagent who finds out that her niece Cornisha has been kidnapped by her arch nemesis, Annaka Manners (played by Candis Cayne). It turns out that Annaka has been using her make-up company as a front to lure hookers off the street, kill them, and sell their body parts on the black market. So in order to rescue her niece, Starrbooty is forced to go as an "undercover ho" nicknamed "Cupcake." But before she is able to infiltrate the prostitution underworld, she has to gain street credibility by turning tricks with the johns. (Among the people she has to service is Owen Hawk, Lady Bunny, and as Starbooty's own boss who's undercover himself, Tom Judson (a/k/a Gus Mattox). A great chance to get some full frontal male nudity in!)

RuPaul defintely commanded the screen with her prescene and her facial expressions. And thanks to director Mike Ruiz (who is a photographer and has directed music videos like Kristine W's "Fly Again" and RuPaul's "Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous"), the picture had a very colorful and nearly psychedelic look to it; it was like someone had slipped me some LSD and I was starting to trip as the picture came on. It was the images on the screen were like assulting your mind. (Maybe it was my pollen allergies acting up instead.) There were a couple of faults with the film--the second half of the film tended to "dragged" a bit, it could have used a faster pace in directing. Some people complained that the climatic fight scene was kind of choppy. Plus the print shown that night had some glitches where twice the picture would go black for a moment though the sound continued just fine. (RuPaul apoligized for the quality of that print and said there would be a new complete print at the film's showing the next day.) But overall the audience enjoyd the picture and laughed loudly throughout it.

Starrbooty is currently doing the gay flim festival circuit this summer and will be coming out on DVD in the fall. As long as you're not one with finer sensitivitites, you'd find it to be, conservatively speaking, a hoot. And if you have the chance to see with an audience, do just that; the picture seems to work better that way.